Film Review: Past Lives — The lovers we choose, the language(s) we speak, the lives we lead
Spoiler Alert: Major plot points in this film review of Past Lives (2023), directed by Celine Song, will be revealed. I recommend watching the film before reading further.
The Long Journey of Rotting
It’s not an enticing image of immigration. Nora (Greta Lee), the female lead in Past Lives (2023), a playwright, uses this “rotting” imagery in her play to describe her journey across the sea from Korea to Canada and then eventually the U.S.
Yet, the words she speaks throughout the film aim to convince the listener, be it Hae Sung (Teo Yoo*) or her husband Arthur (John Magaro), that she wants to be here in her adopted country; that she’s worked her whole life to be where she is now and is happy in this place.
The imagery of rotting evokes this feeling of shedding away, but what is shed is a part of who we are. A melancholic, but inevitable shedding away that’s part of growing up. In this review of Past Lives I will explore this film through multiple lenses — language, film aesthetics, ethnic studies, etc — and how this film articulates what is gained and lost through immigration.
The Use of Spoken/Unspoken Language
Past Lives is a film directed by Korean Canadian filmmaker Celine Song with dialogue in both English and Korean. I first watched this film in a full movie theater in Tokyo with Japanese subtitles. As a native English speaker with no Korean fluency, and very rudimentary Japanese, this made for an interesting viewing experience. I then watched the film again at home with English subtitles.
When first watching the scenes between Nora and Hae Sung, I guessed at what was said between them and then later checked if it matched the English subtitles. It was illuminating to see the disparity between my interpretation of their conversations vs what was actually said.
When I first watched the scene of Nora and Hae Sung’s last Skype call, I assumed it was a break up scene based on their body language. It was only in my second viewing with the subtitles, that I learned that she wasn’t saying anything explicitly about “breaking up.” Instead, she says that she can’t call him for a year because she needs to focus on her career. Hae Sung said that he understands. It’s not like they were going out anyways.
Liar. Even without knowing the language, most audience members are attuned to the emotional reality of what was unfolding. This speaks to the excellent performances by Greta Lee and Teo Yoo and their characters’ fear of vulnerability. They use their words like shields.
Looking closer at the dialogue in Past Lives, one thing that stood out were the double meanings the dialogue conveyed throughout the film. For example, when watching the Statue of Liberty turning away from the tour boat, Hae Sung says, “She turned against us.”
This subtext is a bit on the nose: the promise of liberty and happiness through immigration (as represented by the Statue of Liberty) can turn against people. In the case of Nora and Hae Sung, it separated them and made their possible romance impossible.
When the three of them are at the bar towards the end of the film, Hae Sung responds to a question from Arthur if work is mentally and/or physically tiring, replying, “Mind I am strong.” I found this line interesting because it could also be expanded to his relationship with Nora: the two of them have had a strong connection mentally despite their distance, physically.
Celine Song has mentioned that this bar scene happened in real life. She was the translator between her husband and her childhood sweetheart. She felt, “These two worlds are collapsing — time and space is folding on itself — because of me. And I didn’t have to do anything except exist. I just had to be me and that was enough.”** Similarly, Nora is discovering that Na Young the Korean child and Nora the Korean-Canadian-American adult are occupying the same space.
This multicultural gaze is a great counterpoint to, say, the white gaze in Lost in Translation. Past Lives, particularly the bar scene, shows someone being Found in Translation (corny I know, but I believe it expresses the situation aptly).
Music and Cinematography
Past Lives’ aural and visual aesthetic as a film is quite lovely. It has a melancholic beauty to it with its soft, resonant score by Christopher Bear and Daniel Rossen, paired with its meditative cinematography by Shabier Kirchner. These elements help create an emotionally nuanced film. The score creates this dream-like quality but still has elements that ground it as well. Songs like “Crossing” in the early part of the film with its electric organ sounds, have this ethereal quality; then as the film moves on, more “grounded” instruments like the piano come in.
Towards the end of the film, in the song “See You,” piano keys help transition from Nora and Hae Sung’s goodbye scene to a contemplative shot of Hae Sung looking out the car window. I like how the keys punctuate the cuts in this sequence and heighten the emotional impact. Just re-listening to the song now draws out those emotions I felt when first watching this ending.
With the cinematography by Kirchner and editing by Keith Fraase, the film does a great job with connecting past and present visually. It wasn’t until I watched the trailer after watching the film that I connected the shot of Hae Sung as an adult with the shot of him as a child also looking out the car window. This visual sequence ties him to his “past” life, one without Na Young, another without Nora. But embedded in the last shot, in contrast to the one with him as a child, is a feeling of hope.
Some other shots that stood out for me: the one with Hae Sung sitting at the top of the screen as it rains outside. The reflections seem to split him from the rest of the world, highlighting how out of his depth he is here in New York pining for a past love. There’s also the iconic shot of Na Young and Hae Sung as kids taking separate paths, once during the day and then again at night. A friend pointed out to me how in this shot Na Young walks up the path while Hae Sung stays level as if to say she’s moving onwards and upwards, and he’s staying where he is.
There’s also a panning shot of the pond to Hae Sung that feels very Dovzhenko/Tarkovsky- inspired. It’s very pretty, but the shot seems to want to tell the audience, “Hey guess what, I watched Solaris (1972).” This shot is like the calm before the storm accentuating Hae Sung’s anxiety, but is a bit too conspicuous for me. However, overall, the music and cinematography were both utilized well to help communicate viscerally the themes of this film.
He’s So Korean
One major theme explored in this film is identity. In the scene of Nora talking with Arthur about Hae Sung, she uses the phrase “so Korean” or an equivalent phrase at least five times. Hae Sung is Korean and his Korean-ness makes her feel simultaneously Korean and not-so-Korean. Seeing this exchange rings so familiar with many in the Asian diaspora (Asian American, Asian Canadian, etc…), myself included.
For us the term “so Asian” is part of our daily vernacular and highlights this doubleness we inhabit. As an Asian American growing up in the US in the 90s, the term “so Asian” was often used derogatorily with the implicit bias that Western (European American) values were the norm.
In more recent years, we’ve seen a reclamation of Asian-ness with Asian and Asian American comedians and media creators in the English-speaking space using “so Asian” as a term of pride and a tongue-in-cheek form of superiority. Nora’s use of a similar term, “so Korean,” portrays this ambivalent meaning.
When Nora first says Hae Sung is “so Korean,” it is a negative reference to Hae Sung’s masculinity, shaped by his“patriarchal” Korean society. Her comment demonstrates her belief that Western society exhibits more gender equality. She wants to assure her husband that Hae Sung is no longer a compatible potential partner with her now “Western” way of thinking. But then she goes on to say that Hae Sung reminds her of her “Koreanness” i.e. her Korean roots, a part of her she hasn’t explored deeply in a long time.
American Dream
After the “so Korean” scene, Arthur shares with Nora a common feeling I suspect many international couples have: there’s a language/cultural barrier that feels like it walls off the partner from ever fully accessing this big space within the other. He wonders if he is compatible and worthy of Nora’s love, placing this immense pressure on himself in the context of Nora’s immigration story: is he the answer to Nora’s family’s “immigrant dream” (as Nora mockingly puts it)?
What I appreciate about this film is that it subtly gives nuanced and intelligent commentary on the Western cultural phenomenon of Asian women marrying white men. An Asian immigrant female marrying a white American man can be seen as a form of assimilation and moving up the social hierarchy, i.e. the American Dream. However, as shown by Arthur, this dynamic simultaneously puts unneeded pressure on the perceived privileged white male. We also see in this film the complex relationship that some Asian women have with their Asian male counterparts.
As mentioned before, Hae Sung is an echo of Nora’s past, her Korean-ness. Hae Sung’s not perfect, but he’s a far cry from the abusive Asian men portrayed in films like The Joy Luck Club. He’s understanding, he’s introspective, and he’s attractive. So here’s a question: in the West, are the Asian men that Asian women have left behind for white men really all that bad?
I know, how very Asian male incel of me to ask this question. But let me put this question in a more macroscopic context: What is lost through immigration? In pursuit of more opportunities and stability, is what is gained comparable to the loss?
In this context, Arthur represents the result of Nora’s family’s “immigrant dream” and Hae Sung represents the loss of one’s cultural identity. What this film does well, is that it doesn’t make the judgment whether one choice is better than the other. Arthur is very likable and expresses a genuine love and desire to understand Nora. Hae Sung has an alluring masculinity and a deep connection with Nora. So, should Nora have stayed in Korea and eventually married Hae Sung? Was moving to the U.S. and then marrying Arthur the right decision? There’s no clear answer.
How about in a professional context? As Hae Sung puts it, Korea is too small for Nora’s ambitions. In the late 90s/early 2000s, Nora as a child says to friends she’s immigrating to Canada because no Korean has ever won a Nobel Prize in literature [author’s note: this is no longer true, see footnote].*** We fast forward 12 years to her moving to New York as a young woman; Nora has mastered the English language, and is now working her way up the playwriting world. Twelve years after that, she is even more accomplished and is following through with her stated childhood ambitions, though she now wants a Tony Award more than a Nobel Prize.
Professionally, Nora portrays an ambitious, strong, successful woman who won’t be missing rehearsals just for some guy. She’s living the American Dream. But the times we see Hae Sung re-enter her life, we see the curtain pulled back, and that vulnerable, crying girl Hae Sung used to comfort, resurfaces. Like the use of language in this film, we also see how career and ambition can be used as ways to mask vulnerability. As a child, I suspect she uses her own ambitious goals as a way to mask her own fear of being pulled away from the life she knows in Korea. As an adult, she uses it as an excuse to not talk to Hae Sung, who she is falling for but doesn’t want to get hurt.
In the sphere of artistic endeavor, it seems that Nora has gained a great deal due to immigration. Director Celine Song, with her past theater work and now this breakout film, also seems to have benefited greatly. But, what about that initial reference to immigration as the long journey of rotting? Nora’s mother answers this with, “If you leave something, you gain something too.” In Nora and Celine’s case, they’ve had to say goodbye to past loves and leave their past lives.
Past, Present, Future Lives
Past Lives is a reference to the Buddhist concept of 인연 inyeon (derived from 因緣 yīnyuán in Mandarin), which can be loosely translated to the circumstances and actions that bring people meant for each other together, i.e. destiny; connection. The lead actress Greta Lee explains that in Korean, inyeon carries a more mundane, everyday connotation than “fate.”** It can be as simple as two birds landing on the same branch, or two people’s hands brushing past each other in a crowd. What finally allows two people to marry in this lifetime can be the culmination of thousands of past lives.
Through Nora, we see that each of us can live multiple lives even in this one. In one life, she is Na Young. In another life, she is Nora. However, all these lives and identities live in one place, this lifetime. The flashes of imagery of Na Young and Hae Sung as children help us see how these two have grown up and at the same time, how they have stayed the same. Thanks to the acting and direction, the characters Nora and Hae Sung maintain a certain childlike innocence and emotional core throughout the years despite their adult, mature exterior, linking these multiple lives together.
There’s an inexplicable feeling of loss that is conveyed when Nora says goodbye to Hae Sung at the end. In one sense, she is saying goodbye to a childhood sweetheart and closing the door on their ever being together. In another, she is saying goodbye to a part of herself that Hae Sung represents, that 12 year old girl in South Korea and the life there.
I often think about what my life would be like if I had stayed in Taiwan in the mid-2000s instead of returning to the U.S. At the time, I moved to Taipei and had been living there for two years, had a girlfriend, and had offers to pursue acting. After returning to the U.S., my girlfriend and I tried long distance but eventually broke up (those Skype scenes in the film really hit close to home). What if I had stayed in Taiwan? Would I have married my girlfriend? Would I have become a successful actor? Would my life have been better if I stayed? What kind of person would I be?
As Nora says, in her last line of the film, 모르겠어 (moreugesseo). I don’t know.
There are no easy answers in this film as it is with life. As we move through the world geographically, romantically, temporally…we will eventually encounter deep feelings of loss. If anything, what this film reminds me is that hopefully, with time, I’m able to integrate the lessons and experiences of the multiple lives I’ve lived to make my present life stronger. I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t know if the goodbyes I’ve made in the past were for better or for worse. What I do know is the life that I have now. This life that is a culmination of innumerable circumstances, of 因緣, that has led me to the person I am now to the person I married. To be here is a miracle. It only took 8,000 lifetimes.
Footnotes:
* Teo Yoo interview: On the Yin & Young Podcast, my co-host Dan and I interviewed Teo Yoo years ago in a “past life” when he was an up and coming actor. It gives good insight into his own experiences of dealing with multiple identities (German, Korean) and the struggles of making it as an actor. You can watch/listen here:
**AP News — In Celine Song’s soulful ‘Past Lives,’ a triangle of love, identity and destiny: https://apnews.com/article/past-lives-celine-song-greta-lee-4ea498aff4b6647908e0abe2c1d9f72c
***At the time of this writing (October 2024), South Korean writer Han Kang (The Sympathizer) won South Korea’s first Nobel Prize for Literature (https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2024/han/facts/). Also, currently the only Canadian that has won the Nobel Prize for Literature was Alice Ann Munro in 2013 (https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2013/munro/facts/). So when Na Young makes the statement of South Korea never having won the Nobel Prize in Literature, the same could have been said of Canada. However, it can be assumed she is grouping Canada and the USA together, with the U.S. having a number of Nobel Prize Laureates in Literature prior to 2000.
Special thanks to Richard Sue and Cin-Yee Shih for the editorial notes.
